Can You Let Go of a Grudge?: Learn to Forgive and Get on with Your Life

Everyone has had a grudge. Maybe it only lasted for a few minutes or maybe it’s lasted for years. Eventually some of these grudges are resolved and people move on. But how do you go from being resentful to being forgiving? How can you let go of whatever bad thing happened? What if the reason you haven’t let go is because the act is unforgivable? This book gives insight in the possibility of forgiveness in all situations. It ties spirituality and the forgiving nature of God to the human ability to give out forgiveness. Can You Let Go of a Grudge? gives meaningful steps in how to move toward forgiveness with no illusions regarding the difficulty involved. Like all learning scenarios, it is best to start small so that you can get the practice needed to later move on to the bigger issues. The five steps outlined in giving out forgiveness are: to evaluate deeply what went wrong; to embrace empathy; to tell the scenario in a different way; to give forgiveness as you would a gift; and to take it one day at a time because forgiveness is not an easy task, but rather the right one. Desiderio differentiates between forgiveness and reconciliation. There are times when reconciliation is not in someone’s best interests, such as in the case of a murder or violent situation, but forgiveness does not mean forgetting it means letting go of the anger and resentment towards the person who hurt you and moving on without those emotions in your heart. Here is a welcoming, compassionate book of practical spirituality―a spirituality of forgiveness―that will comfort and inform anyone who has ever experienced a grudge, that is, all of us. †

Frank Desiderio, CSP, served as president of Paulist Productions where he was executive producer of over twenty-five hours of television. He is the director of the Paulist Center in Boston, Massachusetts, where he continues his ministry of reconciliation.